Fairy Tale
by Anonymous033
Summary: "The first time was on Valentine's Day." A Tiva story. Dedicated to Ash.


**Summary: "The first time was on Valentine's Day". A Tiva story.**

**Disclaimer: Hmm...Bellisario, will you let me own NCIS for today so that I can make nice things happen for Ash on her birthday? No? Fine. I won't write you a fic for _your_ birthday.**

**Spoilers: None specific.**

**Dedication: This is for Ash! Happy Birthday! I did my best, I swear! Haha.**

**-_Soph_**

* * *

><p><strong>Fairy Tale<strong>

The first time was on Valentine's Day. Well, strictly speaking, the first time was when they had gone undercover years ago, but that didn't count because that was obligation, and this did count because this was want. Not that they hadn't enjoyed it back then; it just seemed much more significant this time.

Of course, it had to be instigated by Abby, because he would never have had the guts to do it without a plausible reason to back him up, should things fail catastrophically. She had told him in her usual direct manner that she didn't think he'd dare to do it. Naturally he had protested, because since when was Anthony DiNozzo ever afraid of doing anything? Then she'd caught him off-guard by saying that she would make a bet with him; if he did it then she would pay him handsomely, and if he didn't then he would have to polish all her boots. He had had no choice but to agree – she had an entire closetful of boots. Not that he would ever complain about the reason for the bet itself.

And that was how he ended up finding himself clutching flowers and chocolate nervously to his chest as he rode the elevator up to the bullpen on a sunny Monday morning. He knew it was clichéd and unoriginal. But it was infinitely safer than a big gesture that would result in Ziva's not leaving any of his limbs intact as she beat him up with them. At least he'd taken the effort to make sure that they were her favourite chocolates and flowers. She would certainly take that into account, right?

The elevator dinged its arrival way too soon, and he almost crushed the delicate petals of the bouquet in his arms in his anxiety. Catching himself just in time, he relaxed his grip and walked into the bullpen. Ziva was the only one seated at her desk, and she was already typing away efficiently. She looked up as he came in and narrowed her eyes.

"Flowers, Tony?" Her tone was inquisitive, and she paused her fingers above her keyboard, looking like she was waiting for him to launch into a soliloquy about how it was the best way to confess love for a woman.

"Yeah." He cleared his throat. "They're for you." He gently put them down on her table along with the box of chocolates, and would have laughed aloud at her shock had he not a more important and nerve-wracking mission to complete.

She frowned at him and studied the flowers carefully, as if she expected them to be the disguise for something much more sinister. Finding nothing suspicious, she leant forward and sniffed them tentatively. "Thank you."

He could hear her breath catch as she turned her face away from the flowers to find his less than an inch from hers. Closing the gap, he pressed a kiss to her lips, and to his immense surprise she neither broke off the kiss nor plunged an unbent paperclip into his carotid artery. Instead, she actually _kissed back_, and his head began to spin and he was considering deepening the kiss when a well-placed pinch to his arm made him pull away with a slight sound of protest.

"Gibbs is coming," she said breathlessly, her eyes shiny. She turned back to her computer as the elevator dinged. Seconds later Gibbs walked into the bullpen, and Tony had to marvel at his Ninja's supreme abilities.

"Flowers and chocolate, Ziva?" Gibbs raised his eyebrows.

"Yes, they are from an admirer," she replied without batting an eyelash. Gibbs nodded uninterestedly and moved away, and she swivelled her chair around to look up at her 'admirer'.

"Happy Valentine's Day," he whispered, and she furrowed her eyebrows at him; but there was a smile twitching at the corners of her lips that betrayed her true feelings, and in that second he felt like he would gladly have polished all of Abby's boots for a month just because Abby had given him the opportunity to make Ziva smile.

xoxo

The second kiss could only be defined as an accident, and it had only happened because, screw him, he always stood too close to her. She had been in the middle of searching up the information that Gibbs wanted when Tony had announced that he'd finished his work, and then propped his feet up onto his desk and whipped out his phone to start playing whichever game he had installed on it. She and McGee had ignored him, of course. If he deserved a Gibbs-slap for relaxing on the job, the man himself would deliver it.

The triumphant yells and dismayed moans that resulted from his many wins and losses, however, got progressively louder and more annoying, until she finally looked up to tell him to shut up. The familiar cheerful tune that chimed from the phone at the same instant told her he'd lost the game. She rolled her eyes at the dramatic groan that followed. "Do you mind, Tony? McGee and I are trying to work."

He barely lifted his eyes to meet hers as he started a new game. "Not my fault you can't get your work done quicker."

"Well, we might get it done faster if you helped us," she retorted, and his hazel eyes flickered up. He put down his phone and sauntered over to her, peering casually over her shoulder at her computer screen. "That is not helping," she growled, and he grinned charmingly as he indicated for her to continue with her typing. Pushing against his chest to get him to step back, she went back to her work.

She should've known that he wouldn't go away. She should have known that he would just walk back up to her and stand so close that he was breathing down her neck, quite literally. She tried not to concentrate on the fact that he was making her back tingle – in a deliciously good way – and her knees weak. But in the end he was just too distracting and she had to turn around to banish him to his own desk.

And if she were less distracted she wouldn't have turned so abruptly that her lips brushed a corner of his. It was only for a split second, but her heart was suddenly hammering away in her chest as her eyes flew up to his, and she discovered that his gaze upon her was dark, much darker than it had been a few seconds ago, and filled with something that scorched her right down to her toes. "Zi…" he said breathily, and she felt a promising shiver run through her.

She swallowed. "Go back to your desk, Tony," she said softly, trying hard to keep the trembling out of her voice; but he didn't budge. "Tony!"

He blinked, and snapped out of his haze. "Right," he sighed with what sounded like abject disappointment, and whirled away. And as he walked off she couldn't help but to be acutely aware of how she could still taste him on her lips.

xoxo

The third time? Well, it was really just a friendly favour, more than anything else. He'd needed one, and she'd been there to do it, and after the fact neither of them had thought too much about it. After all, partners always had each other's backs, right?

He hadn't meant to get one of the witnesses from the case interested in him. He hadn't even flirted with her at all, even though she was young and beautiful and wildly attracted to him; for the simple reason that Ziva had now set up permanent residence in his mind. But he'd still managed to capture her attention so successfully that she'd gotten into her car after he'd left the crime scene, and tailed the NCIS van all the way back to the Navy Yard. She was denied entrance there, but had thought it a good idea to park outside and wait for him to come out for lunch. In retrospect, it really was bordering on stalking behaviour.

It freaked him out when he stepped out of the Navy Yard, to find the witness' car still parked across the street. He was immediately grateful that Ziva was there; there wasn't exactly much that she could do, but her presence was somehow comforting to him, as if he could deal with the issue better because she was with him. He instinctively grabbed her hand and turned in the direction opposite the car, but a loud call from inside it stopped him dead in his tracks. Curious heads turned their way as he closed his eyes and gritted his teeth.

His pulse jumped when he felt Ziva suddenly thread her fingers tightly in between his. "She is persistent," she said quietly as she turned him around to face the witness, who was now making her way across the street.

"Help me," he wailed softly. He hadn't meant it as an actual plea, though, and was taken aback when Ziva answered.

"I will."

They watched as the witness came to a stop in front of them, practically emanating jealousy. Her eyes glanced at the entwined hands before making their way to his face. "I was wondering if we could grab lunch," she stated, ignoring Ziva's existence.

"I'm sorry. I'm having lunch with Ziva," he replied bluntly.

"She your girlfriend?" The witness frowned.

"Yes. We have been together for six years," Ziva cut in. It was really only half a lie. Technically.

"He didn't mention you just now." The woman scowled at Ziva.

"He did not think it was any of your business," Ziva replied coolly.

"I think you're lying. You don't seem like a couple."

"You would like proof?" Ziva asked. And of course she would choose that moment to lean into him and 'help' him, if only for a briefest second. He felt slightly dizzy as he took in her scent and the feel of her lips, and an odd sort of loss tugged at his heart when she pulled away. "Now we have to go," she told the witness, and tapped on his hand with her fingers to get him to move with her.

He followed her lead as they walked down the street, not minding at all that their hands were still very much clasped together.

xoxo

She would forever remember their fourth kiss, not because it was very memorable in itself, but because the circumstances that surrounded it were. She'd never thought there would ever come a day when he was so broken that she'd have to be the one to pick up the pieces and put him back together. She'd never thought that he'd ever call her from a bar while drunk out of his mind and tell her that he needed good company. She'd ended up driving down just to pick him up and bring him back to her apartment, because she didn't trust him not to pass out and choke to death in his vomit if she left him alone in his own.

It was funny how she sometimes forgot that she loved him more than any other person in the world. This was not one of those times, and as he threw up into her toilet bowl, she squatted beside him and rubbed his back; and she didn't think about how awful the situation must look, but rather how truly precious he was to her and how much her heart hurt because she'd never want to see him in that much pain. She knew it wasn't just the alcohol that made his eyes glaze over; she knew something was chewing him up inside, and it had to be something big to make him want to get even remotely near that drunk.

She cleaned him up afterwards, because he could barely even sit up properly, and a part of her wanted to laugh because under ordinary circumstances, showering down a naked Tony would've been the stuff that made her every dream. But when she'd found some clean clothes for him and he'd fallen asleep in her arms fifteen minutes later, all she wanted to do was cry. He looked too vulnerable, with his head nestled into her shoulder and one arm looped possessively around her waist. Vulnerable was not how she'd ever thought of him.

He woke up in the middle of the night, and she was immediately jolted out of the restless slumber that she'd fallen into. She looked down to find him staring up at her, confusion marring his face. "Are you better?" she asked him, and he winced at the sound.

"I'm okay," he said, the words barely audible. She gently slid his head onto a pillow and went to get him a glass of water. When he'd finished the water she put the glass on her nightstand and climbed back into bed, and he looped his arm around her waist again, shifting just a little bit closer to her.

She ran a hand through his hair. "You were drunk."

"Yeah." He was silent for a while. "My college buddy died."

"Oh. I am sorry."

"Wasn't that close to him. Just reminded me of some…very bad stuff."

"Oh." She waited for him to continue, but he didn't, and she slid down slowly so that she could face him.

"Someday I'll tell you about it." He closed his eyes tiredly for a second and then opened them, and a weak smile crossed his features as he kissed her. "Thanks, Ziva."

This time she fell asleep in his arms. He never told her what he was thanking her for, and she never asked him, but it was enough for her to know that she had helped him, even just the tiniest bit.

xoxo

He would always be surprised by how easy it was for them now; how fluid, how natural, things were. Whenever he really sat down to think, it would seem to him that there hadn't been any obstacles in their way in the first place, but that couldn't be true because then they'd have wasted six years over nothing. Either way, it appeared that something between them had changed for the better, and they still teased and bantered with each other, but there was a sweet and gentle side to it all that he'd never in a million years thought he'd see. He wondered if that was the side he hadn't bothered to bring out in Ziva after all; he'd always considered her a woman who was dangerous and capable, and sexy because she was so, but perhaps there was still a little girl inside her who secretly wished for happy fairy-tale endings.

Sometimes it was downright unnerving, the normalcy with which they continued to live their lives. It was calm, it was peaceful, it was routine, and it was home, and somehow the thought of spending more than eight hours together every day didn't send either of them into panic attacks. It'd become a habit, pressing her against the walls each night and waking up with her in his arms each morning, and it worked for them; he would wish to stay that way for all eternity if he could.

He watched as the first rays of sun began to slip in through the blinds and fall upon her face. It was in moments like this that he thought she looked exactly like an angel. Her eyelids fluttered lazily and soon her large brown eyes were gazing into his. "Good morning," he told her.

She yawned. "Watching me again, Tony?"

"Can't help it," he said in his most helpless voice, and she snorted a laugh.

"You are impossible."

"You love my impossibility."

"That is not the right word to use."

"You love it anyway."

She thought about that as she studied the way the sun seemed to change the colour of his eyes; seemed to light up his whole person, make him into something so beautiful that her heart practically ached for him. "Yes," she finally said as her lips met his.

They weren't prince and princess, and it wasn't the perfect fairy-tale ending. But it was good enough.


End file.
